A paragon of pragmatism

The Belgian way: Baron d’Hoogvorst and cutting a baby in half to save it

I’d like to welcome some new subscribers to The Endless Chain, to thank them for their subscriptions and to invite them warmly to tell me when they think I’m wrong. One feature of my articles is that the subject I start to talk about is rarely the subject I want to talk about. I draw connections and, to do that, I must connect two things. Maybe three. That’s how I think, and it’s how I write, like an endless chain. Welcome.

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The car I drive is fairly ostentatious. I’ve owned it for 30 of its 34 years of existence and it’s a part of me that I would be sad to … part with. One day we will part company, that is sure. You can see it here.

During the pandemic, I was driving through my local area to the shop at the other end of the village, when an extraordinary thing happened: walking with her back to me on the pavement was an elderly lady dressed in a very fine black dress with veil. She could possibly have come from a funeral, if there had been funerals at that time. As I drew close to her, she held out a hand to thumb a lift. I immediately stopped and opened the door and asked where she was headed to, in my best Dutch, and she said she needed to go to the football ground, which was about half a mile further on from the shop I was headed for. Could I give her a lift? I said I would be delighted to, and up she clambered into my Jeep. As we drove down the road, she remarked I had an accent, and enquired where I was from. I told her the United Kingdom, and she asked how long I had lived in Belgium. I answered truthfully, “Half my life.” She was curious to know why I had chosen to live in her country of all places.

I said I had come here out of a quandary: I’d been in Germany, and wanted to leave that country but not go home. The alternatives were Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, and I chose Brussels, because I have friends there, which I didn’t in the other two cities. But the reason I had stayed was this: Belgium is a country that is divided, yet united. It was selected as the home of the European institutions when the Common Market was set up in 1957. Strasbourg was to get the Parliament, and Luxembourg the Court. Brussels would have the cabinet (the Council) and the administration—the Commission. Brussels was not shrouded in international politics, few people outside Europe knew even where it was, or could name a famous Belgian; it had no great cultural influence, or sporting prestige. That’s how Belgium was viewed and that’s why it became the capital of Europe, a little on the basis of how unimportant towns in the U.S. became State capitals. But thereafter, Brussels became the focal point for a united Europe.

Belgium itself has been fraught with division even since its foundation in 1831 following the revolution of 1830 against the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. If you look at the shields above the arches of the 50th Jubilee building, or Cinquantenaire, you can see there are nine, one for each province of Belgium. Nowadays, we have ten provinces, because the province of Brabant felt it necessary to divide into Dutch-speaking Flemish Brabant and French-speaking Walloon Brabant. In Belgium, language is very much politics. A railway guard was recently censured for welcoming his passengers aboard his train in Flanders with the expression, which is quite common around Brussels, “Goeiedag, bonjour”, which is good morning in Dutch and then French, rolled into a single expression. He was found to have contravened the languages legislation by operating a public service in Flanders using the French language. I wrote about it here. By a strange stroke of fate, the incident occurred at Vilvoorde, just to the north of Brussels, which is exactly where peace had been negotiated between the newly independent Belgium and the armies of the King of the Netherlands in 1830.

Image: the Fiftieth Jubilee Park in Brussels.

With extremely rare exceptions, and despite an embattled campaign that would culminate in federalisation in 1969, when, for the first time since independence, Flemings were entitled to address their own government in their own language, the two camps of French speakers and Dutch speakers have restricted their political weapons to words. This I told the lady in black: that if a society is able to reconcile its deeply held differences with such equanimity, then that is a society I want to be a part of. We arrived at the football field and she thanked me for the lift. I have never seen her since, but she is one of a number of passers-by in my life who have entered it for very short periods, during which I have experienced epiphanies, for what I told her about why I remained in Belgium was not something I had reasoned out previously. It came to me out of the blue upon her asking, but is no less true for that fact.

Image: Baron Emmanuel Vanderlinden d’Hoogvorst.¹ His great-great-grandson, of identical name (1914-1999), was a strident opponent of Rexism (Belgian king-based fascism) during the Nazi period in Germany and also an alchemist.

One man who was instrumental in keeping the peace during the revolution in 1830 is today honoured in a rather dowdy side street in the red light district of Brussels. His name was Emmanuel Vanderlinden d’Hoogvorst, even though the street that bears his name is Rue d’Hooghvorst, with an h in the middle. The street links the ladies of the night on Rue d’Aerschot with a predominantly Turkish and Arab shopping street, the Rue du Brabant, which is a fascinating street because it looks like my high street used to look when high streets had shops: an ironmonger’s selling ladders and paint, a laundrette, a general grocer’s, a wedding shop, fashion outlets, a (halal) butcher’s and a baker’s and, for all I know maybe even a candlestick-maker’s. In that part of town, housewives go out every day to buy fresh produce for their menus, and the produce they want is always there, on the doorstep. Like it used to be back home when I was a boy, when shops bore the names of their owners and not trademarked logos.

One feature of the Rue d’Hooghvorst is the Magic Land Théâtre, home to the troupe of actors directed by Patrick Chabout, who founded them back in the 1970s and is still going … more or less, strong. The building it occupies has had many vocations, but was originally the stables of the château that was home to Baron d’Hoogvorst. The château itself was demolished in 1845 to make way for the second Gare du Nord, but because the stables were a little distant from his main residence, they escaped the razing. The street that leads through that part of Brussels up to the then Gare du Nord is the Rue du Progrès—progress street. It runs straight as a die through the town and actually forms part of a sentier de grande randonée, or great walking route (like Santiago de Compostela in Spain) that goes from Amsterdam to Paris. And back, of course.

The Baron’s castle therefore stood in the way of progress, in more than one manner of speaking, and so he agreed to its being demolished to make way for that singular 19th century symbol of progress, the railway. What moved him to do so was not his love of trains, but his love of his country. Belgium had the very first railway in continental Europe, the Mechelen-Brussels line, opened in 1835 (Liverpool and Manchester had opened in 1830). The readiness with which the Baron agreed to lose his home in favour of progress was symptomatic of his dedication to the Belgian independence cause. In the revolution’s immediate aftermath, he negotiated with the Dutch army unrelentingly and tactfully, thus earning the esteem of the Dutch, and, through his diplomacy, he spared a great deal of potential bloodshed. He had approached the Dutch wearing the purple colours of Brabant which had offended them, who insisted he should wear their orange colours instead. He resisted their sartorial demands as a point of principle, and through this they saw his resolve, which eventually won the day, rather than his sabre. Finally, they abandoned their demands and the Dutch troops that had assembled in the town of Vilvoorde turned tail and headed back to The Hague.

One consequence of the defection of Brabant to Belgium was the split of that county into South Brabant, which became the Belgian Brabant, with North Brabant remaining to this day under that name in the Netherlands, and the strange relationship between the towns of Baarle Hertog (Belgian) and Baarle Nassau (Dutch) at the border area just north of Antwerp, with the border between the two countries running down the middle of some people’s beds.

Baron d’Hoogvorst is one of the forgotten heroes of the Belgian revolution. He has a street named for him and his stable remains standing as a place of mirthful entertainment (Magic Land always do comedies). But his legacy can still be felt in this country. We were invaded and occupied in both world wars, and we have known the shame of colonial occupation in the Congo and Rwanda. We have known scandal, from the private empire of Leopold II, to the unworthy capitulation to Germany of Leopold III, the illegitimate offspring of Albert II, the death in a mountaineering accident of Albert I (who was the last king—le roi-soldat—to lead troops into battle, in World War I), and the tragic death of 29-year-old Queen Astrid by the Lake of Lucerne in Switzerland. We’re known for having a sovereign who is not the king of his country but of his people—Philippe, King of the Belgians—and we have a national anthem that vaunts proudly the aspirations of a unifying king, freedom and the value of the law. We have the poorest, and best, sovereign in the world.

In just over a month, our country will stand still for an entire day and remember the Armistice that was signed in that railway carriage near Compiègne in France, which decreed that the Great War, which had destroyed many a house, citizen and blade of grass across the length and breadth of our country, would end at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Other countries will also hold services of remembrance, on the nearest Sunday to the 11 November. But we mark the day itself as a public holiday. Because peace is part and parcel of the Belgian soul. On that day we mourn again our lost sons and daughters. And we celebrate: we celebrate peace.

We could not have beaten back the invader without help from our friends. From America, and Britain, France and Imperial Russia. But we paid a high price nonetheless for the barbarity that we had suffered under for over four years, and we would pay double in the years 1940 to 1944. We were compensated with the transfer of territory in the east, but we did not seek vengeance. How would little Belgium seek vengeance against great empires? Instead we learned a lesson that many great empires have never learned: the immeasurable value of peace.

America, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to no avail to explain to JD Vance on that fateful day of mobbing in the White House, enjoys its peace from an accident of geography. The two vast oceans that flank it give it a wide buffer zone that only recently could be traversed by enemy powers with ships or aircraft of any note. And still it contends it is in a state of war with those nations that bound it north and south. America as much as any country knows the definition of war and, if it defines those relationships as war, then it draws a sombre veil over the ways in which it has itself waged wars in even the recent past. But, if America has lost its conception of what war is, then it certainly never once in its history knew what peace is, or the value of holding onto it when there is nothing in it except the will which says to it: “Hold on”, if I may paraphrase Kipling. And that is because it has never sustained any great losses on its own continental territory, so that the true cost of war and the true value of peace have rarely been brought home to those citizens of the U.S. who didn’t actually join up to fight its campaigns in foreign parts.

If the values stated to constitute the fundament of the United Nations had been reflected in the constitution of its members, then Belgium should have been made a permanent member of the Security Council. Ukraine and Belgium are among the countries that know the cost of suffering and the value of peace: give them seats on the Security Council. Perhaps they can shame the rest of the world into mutual respect, because threatening them into it just doesn’t seem to be working. But, how silly of me, and how silly of the United Nations: working is the last thing that the Security Council was ever intended to do.

The Security Council’s members are chosen by dint of their size, influence and military power, but none of that is of relevance on that board of management. What is needed is equanimous judgment and reason. It is not the powerful that will reason for peace and justice; it is the weak. Belgium is an ideal candidate, because it has no force. Because it is easily invaded and subjugated. Because it has suffered at the hands of others, and because it has won back its own self-respect and the international respect of others, and established itself at the centre of a continent and yet not once raised unprovoked arms against its neighbours or cohabitants. Not ever, and even in its revolution of independence, it was Belgium that negotiated for peace, not the Netherlands. What the Security Council has always needed is not force of armaments, but force of reason. And that Belgium has: for it has consistently been able to resolve its own differences peaceably.

If great men are to leave a legacy, then Baron d’Hoogvorst left the best and possibly the holiest: a tradition of peace and progress, and the remains of a … stable whose importance continues to this day, in the company of prostitutes. Oh, yes, Belgium is also a centre for surrealism, born of a sense of humour tinged by centuries of foreign occupation.

But, you will ask, what has this to do with what I really want to talk about? Well, the friend who was the decisive factor in my decision to come to Brussels dropped by some weeks ago to while away a few hours en route from Germany to his home in the city. Our conversation turned to Palestine, and he came out with a shockingly frank statement: “Kill all the Palestinians.”

I was confused—what could he possibly mean by saying such a thing? He explained. And I understood. Nobody wants them. Nobody is prepared to invest themselves in the future of Palestine. Because they have nothing to offer. They have no money and no resources. So, if everyone abandons them, what future can they have? We are all so full of fine words, but we alone can do nothing, because it is our governments who hold the whip hand, and it is Israel that holds the best cards. Us? We can do nothing, except weep and wail and bemoan their plight. Would you allow a horse with colic to suffer till its final death pangs overcame it? No, you’d shoot it in the head.”

Of course, please don’t get me wrong. Neither of us seeks to eliminate the Palestinian people. But his words have a galvanising force: that if Palestine is to be saved, to be resurrected, to be given new life, we must do all we possibly can to oblige our governments to help the government and people of Palestine. If our governments fail, then in how far can we shrug our shoulders and say we had no role in that? Because our governments make our helping them a criminal offence?

We have failed, thus far. They have failed, thus far. And we and they will continue to fail. And our failure leads only to one thing: the killing of the Palestinians, come what may, to the point where their deaths and sufferings wash over us like a summer rain shower: a spot of dampness on our visage before the sunshine comes out again, and we carry on with our tennis party.

The Palestinians are not the last of this, mark my words. There will be a lull, but then there will be renewed targeting of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan even, Iran, Iraq. If Vladimir Putin’s ambitions are to re-constitute the USSR, then Israel’s must be to re-constitute the Turkish Empire. But without the “Turkish”. ISIS wanted to establish a caliphate from the Maghreb to Baghdad. Well, it may just be established. But it wouldn’t be Muslim.

Before that happens, much money must flow under the bridge, along with the oil, the railways, the rivieras, and the gloating self-satisfaction. If pride comes before the fall, then this fall will be almighty in its magnitude. But if remorse is the path to absolution, then it is those who have allowed this great tragedy who must set to to set it right.²

King Philippe of the Belgians gives an address to the nation on the national day each year, on 21 July. This year, he broke with royal protocol, so enraged was he about Palestine’s treatment. In regal but condemnatory words, he described what has happened there as a disgrace to humanity. His measured restraint only augments the shame. King Felipe of Spain has mirrored those sentiments, and the Israeli response has been to arrest a 42-vessel flotilla of humanitarian aid in breach of international law.

Belgians are good diplomats, because two world wars and a revolution, and nearly two hundred years of verbal infighting have taught us pragmatism. When they thought the Nazis would win, they collaborated. Those who refused to accept the occupation were imprisoned and killed. But my friend’s pragmatism calls to mind the Wisdom of Solomon: perhaps proposing that the baby be cut in half may just propel us to ensure it is saved.

1. Par Unknown author — http://www.unionisme.be/cnVander_Linden_d_Hooghvorst_E.htm, Domaine public, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5233917.

2. I quote here a comment I posted recently on someone else’s valuable contribution to this debate:

Germany is vocal in supporting the existence of Israel in someone else’s country. And so is Britain, and so is the US. What they are not vocal about is the obvious solution, a final solution, that “debtors should pay their debts”, that “the polluter pays”, that it is the “guilty who go to prison and not the innocent”. These fundaments of our sense of justice should never be abrogated. And that applies whether Israel is murdering Palestinians or even if they had never so much as touched a hair on a Palestinian’s head: they should not be there as uninvited colonial masters. They should have been accorded a homeland on the territory of their persecutors. It was considered at the time, and rejected: by the Zionists. They said they didn’t want anywhere else but Palestine.

And the crime was committed by the nations that said “Okay, you can have someone else’s territory” within months of the United Nations having declared in its charter that “armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest”. Once the UN had so quickly thrown its own charter down the toilet, how surprised should we have been that Israel likewise threw its membership of the UN down the toilet, or that it treats the UN GA in a desultory fashion? Germany after WWII was in a poor state. It was exhausted and needed a shot in the arm. It got many shots in its arm and it is now a very wealthy place. What I ask is well within its reach. If it means Germans have to up sticks and move to make way for the Israelis, am I bothered? It’s what Germany wants Palestinians to do, so they obviously have no objection to having to make room for Israelis. And, if that’s so, they can jolly well do it themselves.